How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Page 543

3.58 PRIMAL THERAPY
Cool comes in many forms. In the case of Primal Therapy, cool
means unorthodox, controversial, and powerful enough to ruffle
feathers after 40 years.
First off, Primal Therapy is the name of the modality, Primal
Scream was the name of the 1970 book where Janov claimed
mental illness can be eliminated by therapy that involves
experiencing and expressing repressed pain from childhood.
Sometimes this results in screaming, sometimes sobbing,
whatever it takes to express the hurt. The decibels don't matter
as long as clients access and express these raw, early emotions.
Why is this so important? Take a look at this:
"The number one killer in the world today is not cancer or heart
disease, it is repression." - from Why You Get Sick and How You
Get Well
According to Janov, unexpressed pain and painful memories
place undue stress on our psyche and physical bodies, and may
cause illness. Everything from hypertension, allergies, asthma,
panic attacks, heart palpitations, ulcers, phobias, depression each can be potentially traced to repressed emotion. Address the
cause (early pain), and the symptom will subside.
Most everyone associated with psychotherapy has heard of
Primal Therapy. Whether they love it or hate it, Janov's work has
forced the field to wrestle with the significance of repression and
raw emotion in their theoretical formulation. If this area were
completely unimportant, Primal Therapy wouldn't cause such a
ruckus.
When would a clinician use Primal Therapy?
Primal Therapy is used to treat a wide variety of neuroses,
including the treatment of anxiety and depression. The aim is to
return to the origins of the pain (which always goes back to a
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